Random crashes part deux...help please!

[Poundmax]

Hey all,

So I'm still experiencing random crashes frequently while playing WoW (and really only then as far as I know)

The story so far...
I thought it was an overheating issue (since my tower was in a low airflow setting) and having a fan DIRECTLY facing the computer seemed to prevent this. I cracked open everything and went dust hunting like mad, cleaning out everything from the fans and anywhere else I saw dust. I then noticed a substantial drop in tempature (~25 degrees less on average) but still continued to shutdown after only playing WoW for about 10 minutes. I then went back to the fan method but it recently shut down once while on the medium setting (high is usually what I set it at) so I decided enough was enough and removed it from the inner desk to just sitting on the floor by itself now in a fully open air setting thinking that would be the fix but nope, still happening...

I ran a memtest with no problems detected and with that I'm clueless...what else could it be? I can run my computer endlessly (it's only 2 years old btw) and never have any issues, but WoW just seems to kill everything. What happens exactly is the computer and monitor appears to go to standby (doesn't respond to the power button at all) and any other music or game sounds just freezes up in an infinite loop. The only thing I can do at this point is just kill the comp entirely by flipping the switch.

Any suggestions??? Check out my CPUID HW monitor scan too if something looks out of place there, the temp seems high but it doesn't feel hot anymore on the casing anywhere and it is considerably lower than before. http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m...h/Untitled.jpg

Thanks

[OhpUldum]

Run a scan of the hard drive to check for read errors using HDD Scan
Format and reinstall Windows
Install drivers on a fresh copy of windows
Install WoW on the fresh copy of windows

It sounds as if you have a hardware issue but its hard to say. Start with the HDD Scan and go from there.

[Demoness]

Your power supply is going bad. Do not format your HDD. That is not necessary. If your hard drive were the problem, you would be getting blue screens. When your PC shuts down, does it just black out like it loses power, or does it give an error before it shuts down?

[Poundmax]

No error at all, just a simple and fast cut to blackness. Could it be a power supply issue even if it only happens while playing wow?

[OhpUldum]

Could be that WoW is the most demanding task your computer is being put through which when idle it is using up little to no power but under load your computer is drawing enough power from a dying power supply and the power supply can't handle it so the computer crashes.

You could try running a stress test on the computer using Prime95 and see if the same issue arises.

[Fuzzykins]

Make sure all bios settings are default, and your Cool N' Quiet or whatever it's called is off.

Your power supply is going bad. Do not format your HDD. That is not necessary. If your hard drive were the problem, you would be getting blue screens. When your PC shuts down, does it just black out like it loses power, or does it give an error before it shuts down?

If it was a PSU issue, you'd think it'd just kind of cut to black instead of looping sound and whatnot. :S

[Demoness]

The power supply could cause such behavior. Undervolting during load does very strange things. Without putting my own hands on the PC, I cannot guarantee it, but I would bet $5 that if you swapped to a different power supply for a few days, your problem would stop.

[Deleted]

It's not impossible that one of your hardware components is broken.

PCs behave very erratically in those situations and it can be very hard to nail down the problem from the symptoms alone.

I've had my PC constantly reboot because of a malfunctioning GPU. I've had my PC refusing to boot because of a broken Motherboard and I've had stability issues because of a bad PSU.

My 2 cents would be on a hardware failure.

[Yohassakura]

Definitely sounds like a hardware failure - Sound skipping sounds a lot like the Hard drive, coupled with the monitor cutting off points a bit towards the GPU, though both occuring at the same time makes it between the motherboard and the hard drive.

[Bassnectar]

I have been getting them too, every time I died in TB I crashed then just randomly today in other areas.

[Demoness]

Hmm, i've been getting some real strange "Black Screen of Death" crashes while playing WoW tonight. It's a common issue and there's a few potential causes ranging from driver settings, to whole new drivers, from corrupted installations to hardware failure. I'm currently trying out new drivers as well as checking it's not my overclock. I've so far concluded it's not my overclocks.

I have done some testing of my own and found out that the black screen crash is related to DX11 and Nvidia 5xx cards/drivers. If the game is run in DX9 that problem never pops up. The OP problem has different symptoms though. Originally I thought PSU, but I don't think that is causing the crash + looping sound. It is kinda hard to speculate and guess which part it is without having a work table full of known-goods to swap in and out. I like the theory of hard drive, but I also think it could be RAM related. Not system RAM, VGA RAM. It would be such a quick fix if you had another computer to canabalize for an evening to check a few different components.

[Shakadam]

It could possibly be a memory or CPU voltage failure, that can cause all kinds of weird problems. If you've overclocked and raised any voltages try lowering them back a little, if you haven't then try raising them a little (memory, possibly CPU Vcore and maybe northbridge (MCH) voltages). Beware that raising voltages may raise temperatures slightly as well depending on how good your cooling is but if you only raise them a minimum amount it shouldn't have any impact.